Girls Are Always Waiting
by non-damsel
Summary: Sense & Sensibility, not modernized but... futurized! Sort of a companion to Pride & Prejudice in Space.
1. The Orphans of the Revolution

**A/N: Well, this little piece of insanity has been knocking around in my head since **_**Pride and Prejudice in Space. **_**It exists in the same universe as that one (though you don't need to have read **_**Pride and Prejudice in Space – **_**basically all that means is that were in the future and somewhere in the galaxy Will Darcy is president). Figured I'd give it a go and see if I get much of a response from anyone. If not, oh well. So review if you want me to continue.**

* * *

Girls Are Always Waiting

_1. The Orphans of the Revolution_

It was Fanny who broke the news.

"He's dead," she said without ceremony, as soon as she'd shut the cellar door behind her. It wasn't exactly a surprise to the three girls waiting down there, and their reactions were predictable. Marianne's face crumpled into soft tears. Margaret crossed her arms sullenly and said, "Good."

And Elle was already thinking: _what next_? She wasn't heartless. Later, maybe later, there would be time for her to lay out all of her feelings about her father's death and sort through them. There just wasn't time now. These were desperate days, and if she didn't figure out what they were going to do she knew what would be next. They would be next.

John was close on the heels of Fanny, his wife. With one look at Marianne, he knew that Fanny had already told them. But still he turned to Elle and said, "Have you heard?"

"Just," she said, with more sarcasm then she intended. She had to remind herself to be kind to John. This was, after all, his cellar, and he was concealing them at great risk to himself. John was their bastard brother, which nobody—nobody—on the planet knew but them and him. It was an old state secret. They were safe hidden here as long as no one knew, but what if someone found out? What if someone were to trace the relation?

"Fanny, let's leave them alone," John said. He had gently taken his wife's arm, who nevertheless looked annoyed and shook him off. But even Fanny couldn't argue with so reasonable a suggestion, and she reluctantly followed her husband back up the cellar stairs. Elle shot John a thankful look. He may not have caught it. She could hear Fanny hissing at him as they went up, "John, they can't stay here forever. It's not safe for us. They aren't even your real sisters. I'm your real wife."

Elle waited until she heard the door shut.

Then she said, "We have to get off planet."

Marianne looked up at her sharply. The middle child, she was also the prettiest, with thick dark hair and blue eyes and pouty lips and a figure with exactly the right curves. All of her parts might have screamed _sex_ if she had been intentional with them at all, but she wasn't. She never tried to use her looks to her advantage. She barely seemed to notice them. But even when she was crying she was more beautiful than Elle was on a good day.

For now, Marianne's tears had stopped. There was something akin to anger flashing behind those drippy eyes. She said, "We just found out that our father is _dead_, and all you have to say is that we have to get of planet? God, Elle!"

Elle didn't take it personally. These were their rolls and they played them well. Marianne was feeler; Elle was the thinker. And Margaret…

Margaret said to Marianne, "He was a thug. A war lord. A common criminal. He deserved what he got."

That started a one sided argument, where Marianne ranted as Margaret sat placidly and listened, her stony expression much too hard for a girl of only fifteen. Elle sighed. She wasn't going to get involved. All three of the sisters had always had ambiguous feelings about their father. He was all of the things Marianne said. And worse things. But he was their father, and he was dead. Margaret's vehemence against him had developed recently, as she'd hit her teenage years. It was frankly a little troubling, as were the other changes in Margaret. She had dyed her sandy hair black and started penciling thick lines around her eyes. And she didn't talk much anymore. She just looked at you with those angry green eyes.

But there were more immediate problems than Margaret. Elle started to list them in her head. Their father, Czar Dashwood—thug, war lord, criminal, despot—was dead. They had no friends an infinite amount of enemies. They were living in a cellar, Fanny hated them, and worst of all Fanny happened to be the sister of Edward Ferris. Ferris was a famous revolutionary, a man of both action and dazzling rhetoric, who had helped lead The Undergrounds in a rebellion that had overthrown her father's planet-wide regime. He was one of those same revolutionaries who would now be gunning for the Dashwood daughters.

All in all, their position was precarious. They had to get out of this cellar. They had to get off planet, that was clear. But where would they go? The universe was big place, and yet Elle had no idea.

* * *

Edward Ferris was in a room with Lucy Steele when his phone rang. It was his sister, and he answered it. Then she started telling him incredible things. He wanted to leave the room, but he knew that Lucy Steele was paying attention to his side of the conversation, and the last thing he wanted was to arouse her suspicion. It wasn't that he didn't trust Lucy but…okay, he didn't trust her.

So he was being very careful about what he said.

They were in the former palace of Czar Dashwood, now occupied by The Undergrounds, and Lucy Steele had sat herself irreverently on former czar's thrown. Wasn't that just the picture? Edward wondered how the reporters, ferreted around by Undergrounds eager for good press, had managed to miss this photo op. Lucy Steele—already a folk hero, the girl who's bullet had finally taken down the war lord Dashwood—sprawled in his throne in her fierce leather combat wear, eating an apple with a knife.

And watching him like a hawk.

As Fanny talked excitedly, Edward began to pace the room. "Why are you telling me this, Fan? What is it you want me to do?" he asked. He glanced at Lucy, and replied to his sister, "Okay, listen. Just leave it alone. I'll stop by in a few hours to take a look at the problem for you." He hung up the phone.

He glanced at Lucy.

She raised her eyebrows, an expression that said, _Well? _Then she cut another piece from her apple and used the knife to gingerly place it between her sharp, white teeth. She was both startlingly beautiful and frightening. She had deep, suspicious eyes and the darkest hair, cut boy-short—probably with that same knife.

But Edward had helped lead a revolution, and he certainly knew how to keep his cool. He said, striking the right note of mild exasperation, "My sister. Apparently her basement's flooding, which isn't something her useless husband's going to be any good for."

Lucy stretched her legs out, then draped them over the side of thrown. Edward wasn't sure, but he felt like she wanted him to notice them. He felt confused. Then he chided himself. Lucy Steele was a mercenary. A soldier. And just because she was also a girl didn't mean she was trying to seduce him. After all, it wasn't as though she had suddenly pulled off her shirt to show him her breasts. She had only shifted positions in a chair.

"How domestic," Lucy said, sounding bored.

Under the circumstances, a crises as everyday as a flooded basement did seem rather passé. They had overthrown a war lord dictator with a planet-wide regime of terror. They were occupying the capital building. They had many, many things to do—a whole new government to arrange, and there were pockets all over the planets where the revolutionary forces were still fighting well-equipped bands of Dashwood loyalists.

Which was precisely why Edward had invented the flooded basement. He knew that Lucy would take no interest in it whatsoever.

"I know, my sister," he said, faking annoyance. "And trust me, if I don't go help her out tonight she will not give me a moment's rest until I do."

"Such a good brother," Lucy said.

He felt confused again. He did not know Lucy well. She wasn't one of the original Underground, the people he had worked alongside of for years to overthrow Czar Dashwood's reign of tower. She had shown up at the last minute right before the fighting really started, out of nowhere. There were rumors she wasn't even from the planet, that she was some kind of paid mercenary.

"Right, well," he said. "I suppose I'd better—"

He trailed off, but it was just as well, for she had continued talking where she'd left off. "Good soldier, good leader, good orator. What other things are you good at, Edward Ferris?" Her hawk-eyes held his gaze for a moment, and then she let them drift suggestively down his body. No, he was not making that up. That had definitely just happened.

"Gardening," he said, in answer to her question.

She smiled slightly, coyly. "Hurry back," she said. And Edward Ferris hurried away.

* * *

Elle had heard Fanny on the phone. She had gone upstairs, out of the cellar, to find John and talk to him about getting off planet, and that was how it had happened. When she'd heard Fanny talking in the next room, she had stopped short on the other side of the doorway and listened. She wasn't sure what had made her do it, but her instincts had been right. Fanny was telling someone about them.

Elle turned around and went straight back down the stairs. Margaret was in a corner with her headphones on, as usual. So Elle had only told Marianne what she'd overheard. This might have been a mistake, because now Marianne was loading a gun.

"We could leave now, before anyone has time to get here," Elle suggested.

"And go where?" Marianne asked.

It was a good point, Elle had to admit.

"The way I see," Marianne continued, "we're either going to get shot in the street or shot in the cellar. Unless I shoot them first."

* * *

It took Edward forty-five minutes to get to Fanny's house from the old palace where he had been with Lucy Steele. She met him at the door and ushered him inside.

"What took you so long?" she hissed.

Edward was the middle of three children, and the odd one out. While he'd always been an idealist, which had eventually led him down his revolutionary path, both his older sister and younger brother were starch pragmatists. He loved them. He tried to love them, at least—they were his siblings. But he had never gotten along with them.

Instead of answering her questions, Edward started asking his own. "Are they actually here? And John's their _brother_?"

"Half-brother," Fanny said, with so much vehemence that Edward almost felt bitten by the words. "And yes, they're in the cellar, like I told you."

"What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked again, because she hadn't really answered him over the phone.

"Take them away," Fanny said, without hesitation. "Do whatever it is you all want to do with them. They can't stay here. Someone will find out. Eventually someone will. And John thinks he's being kind but he doesn't realize what's at stake. His career. Our lives! They just can't stay here."

Fanny's coldness always rubbed him the wrong way. She was so willing to give the Dashwood sisters up for dead, when even Edward wasn't sure how he felt about them. Yes, they were the dead Czar's daughters, but how culpable did that make them? Most of The Underground wanted their lives next. They were convinced the daughters would try to avenge their father's death, to take control of the remaining Dashwood loyalists and extend the bloody war that had already been raging for years.

But Edward wasn't so sure. What if they didn't want to fight their father's battle? What if they just wanted out?

He also wasn't sure he believed they were in Fanny's cellar, but now the moment of truth had arrived. "You stay here," he told Fanny, as he carefully opened the cellar door. He stepped down through the opening onto the stairs. For some reason, Fanny closed the door behind him. He had to pause a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the light.

Then he began climbing down the stairs. And when he got to the bottom, there they were. He recognized them immediately. All three Dashwood girls, standing in a row, in his sister's basement.

And one of them was pointing a gun at him.


	2. The Man Who Would Be King

_2. The Man Who Would Be King_

"Of course it's Edward Ferris," Marianne said. She had recognized him immediately, had in fact anticipated this, and she was even happier now to have a gun leveled at him. No surprise that bitch Fanny was handing them over to her brother to be killed. There was surely a ruthless little band of Undergrounds waiting outside. Well, Marianne had a gun. At least she could take Edward Ferris down with them.

"Woa, hold on," he said, holding both hands up, the universal signal for _I'm unarmed_. "I was really hoping this wouldn't get quite so violent quite so quickly."

"So, what? You come in peace?" Elle asked, from where she was standing beside Marianne, arms crossed skeptically. At least, Marianne thought, Elle was backing her up, presenting a united front, for once in her life.

Edward Ferris's eyes flickered to Elle, and, as if judging her the most reasonable person in the room (probably true, Marianne had to admit) he addressed his appeal to her. "To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure, but none of us will ever get to figure that out if your sister shots me now. And frankly, I'm about the only person on this planet who might be able to help you."

He had a point.

"He has a point," Elle said.

But Marianne still kind of wanted to shoot him. She still held the gun, calm and steady, aimed at that sweet spot in the middle of his chest.

"Stop being such a bitch, Mari," Margaret oh-so-helpfully chimed in. "You can't shoot Edward Ferris, like, the only person on the entire planet of Crash who's done anything good for it in the past fifty years."

"By which you mean _murdering our father_," Marianne hotly replied. Honestly. She was a little bit tempted to turn the gun on her younger sister. It was getting really exhausting living in a cellar with that girl's attitude. And her unfortunate make-up and hair choices.

"Technically, it wasn't me who shot him," Edward interjected.

"Really?" Marianne asked, not yet lowering the gun. "You're going to get all _technically _at me right now?"

"Marianne," Elle said, with that hint of reprimand Marianne was too used to hearing. Then Elle turned back to Ferris and volleyed a few important questions at him. "Are we really supposed to believe you came here alone? Unarmed? The great, brilliant Edward Ferris?" she asked.

But Edward's attention was back on the girl who was holding him up. "Does Fanny know you have that?" he asked Marianne, which seemed hardly the most important question he could be asking, under the circumstances.

"We find it isn't necessary for Fanny to know _everything_," Elle said, in a tone that could possibly be described as cute. What was going on here? And then Edward Ferris laughed, actually _laughed_, with a gun pointed at him and everything. He seemed pretty cocksure he was going to make it out of this alive.

His demeanor changed again, as quickly as he had laughed. He looked at them all in turn and said with so much sincerity, "I really am here alone, and I don't have a gun."

It was impossible not to believe him, almost impossible not to like him, when he turned himself on like that. Marianne had thought it before when she'd seen him one TV, how easy it was to see why the planet was ready to follow Edward Ferris anywhere he led them. He was young—barely older than Elle, if he was older than Elle—and yet he had conceived and led a revolution on a hopeless planet with the mere force of his idealism.

She lowered the gun.

He visibly relaxed. "We have to move you," he said. "You can't stay here."

* * *

For Edward Ferris, it had been a strange ten minutes. When he'd first seen Marianne brandishing that gun at him, he'd had the fleeting thought that this was an assassination and Fanny had deliberately locked him down here to die. You couldn't put anything past Fanny. Her number one instinct was self-preservation.

But he quickly realized it was much more likely that the Dashwood daughters had staged this one on their own. Somehow they had known he was coming. So at first it had been about trying not to get shot dead by the lunatic sister, Marianne. But over the course of the conversation something shifted and he was on their side. He wanted more than to not get shot; he wanted to help them. Because he doubted they really wanted to take back Crash in their father's honor, and he just liked them. Especially the tall one, who was so pragmatic and quite funny, in an unintentionally searing way.

So at the end of ten minutes, when Marianne finally lowered the gun, he found himself throwing his lot in with theirs. He said, "We have to move you. You can't stay here."

"Where? To prison?" Marianne asked, but at least she'd put the safety on.

It seemed like the tall one—Elle, that was her name—was his best chance for reason, and so he addressed himself to her again. "Fanny doesn't want you here, and that means you aren't safe. Trust me, she'll go over my head if she has to."

"Who's over _your_ head?" Elle mused.

Not many people, he had to admit. The throne was more or less his if he wanted it. He knew that. But he didn't want it. He wanted something better for his planet; that had been the point of all this. But then there was Lucy Steele. Did she want the something better or did she want the thrown?

"And what a lovely sister you have," Elle added.

"You should meet my brother," he ruefully replied.

Marianne gave an exasperated little sigh, which prompted Elle to ask him the real question: "Why do you want to help us?"

"I'm not sure I can explain. I just know that I do," he said. "I mean, you don't actually want the planet, do you? You're not going to plan a coup?"

"I might," Marianne offered, and the youngest one sent her this death glare. Marianne rolled her eyes. "It's a _joke_, Marg. Take a joke." Then Marianne turned to Elle and said, "Well, oddly enough I believe him. And I'm apparently the hard sell here."

Elle turned to him. "We don't have anywhere else to go," she admitted. "As you may be aware, we're very unpopular at the moment. We've sort of run out of options."

"I'll figure it out," he said. "One thing I do know is where to hide things in this city."

"Oh," Elle said, smiling. "I reckon you know a lot more than that."

He was going to have to watch himself around her. This had the potential to turn into a serious case of wanting what you could never, ever have.

* * *

He had left them, gone back up the cellar stairs and out to "handle Fanny," as he had said he would. Elle could feel Marianne looking at her, with an expression akin to bewilderment.

"You flirted with him," Marianne said.

Had she? Elle wasn't entirely clear on that point.

"You tried to kill him," Margaret accused Marianne.

Marianne shrugged. "Only when I thought he might kill me."

"I'm just saying, that's worse," Margaret replied. She pulled her hood up on her head, plugged her headphones in and walked away from them, sitting down in her usual spot, no longer interested in the conversation. What were they going to do with that girl? Elle was still really hoping it was just a phase of adolescence.

"You did flirt with him, though," Marianne said.

"Well at least I got him to like us," Elle replied. "You with the gun weren't much help."

Marianne grinned. "At least you got him to like_ you_."

Elle sighed. "Mari, I think we can safely assume that Edward Ferris has more on his mind than _that_."

"He's a boy. What else do they think about?"

But in the case of Edward Ferris, there were plenty of other things. She believed that he wanted to help them, but she didn't necessarily believe that he would make good on his promise. He would find it too risky, too impossible, or he would simply find that he had too many other things to do now—defeating the lingering Dashwood loyalists, establishing a government, pulling the Crash out of the dismal straights it was in. He had other promises to make good on, promises to an entire planet, not just to three lost girls.

"I very much doubt he'll be back," Elle said, shaking her head. "We still need to think about getting off planet."

"You're probably right," Marianne sighed. "Fanny will just up and kill us herself soon." Oddly enough, the episode with Edward Ferris had calmed Marianne down. She had mellowed since that morning, when they'd learned of their father's death. The hysterics were over. "But I think he'll come back," she added. "Is Edward Ferris not the soul of integrity?"

"Make a bet?" Elle suggested.

Marianne laughed. "Right. And which of my illustrious possessions would you like me to wager?" She gestured grandly around the cellar. They had with them little more than a few changes of clothing, Marianne's gun, and Margaret music player. So they did not make a bet. But if they had, Elle would've lost.

He was back the next day, and he came with a plan. Half-baked, but a plan.

"I know where to take you, I just don't know how to get you there," he admitted. "It's so risky. You're too damn recognizable. Especially Marianne."

"_I'm _recognizable? Elle's the giant," Marianne retorted, as if recognizable was somehow an insult.

"I just meant with the hair and….everything," he finished, gesturing vaguely at Marianne. But Elle knew what _everything _meant and felt a weird twinge of jealousy. Which was really a stupid feeling to have about Edward Ferris. He continued, "I mean, clearly Margaret is the one with the brains. She's the only one of you who knows how to be covert."

Elle knew, immediately, what he was doing: trying to bring Margaret on board. She was sitting in her usual spot against the wall, headphones on. But as Elle so often suspected was the case, she was listening. She slid the headphones down to her neck and looked at Edward.

He said to her, "Obviously, your sisters could learn a thing or two from you."

"I know, right?" Margaret said. And she didn't quite smile, but it was the closest Elle had seen to a smile since they'd been in the cellar. Maybe since long before that.

"Alright then. You two run along and play," he said, waving dismissively at Marianne and Elle. "Margaret and I will come up with the plan, since she's the expert." He crossed the room and sat down with Margaret, then seemed to actually engage in a serious conversation with her on how best to get them from the cellar to wherever they were going.

Even Marianne was impressed. "Well, I have to say, Margaret likes him. And Marg doesn't like anyone."

"And to think you almost shot him."

Marianne made an incredulous face. "Oh come on. That was nowhere near almost. Besides, I never _almost _shoot someone. I shoot them, or I don't."

It was true that Marianne was a decent marksman, although Elle was the real clutch shot. They'd grown up on Crash, after all, daughters of a much hated czar. They all had their survival skills. Marianne had made herself into something of a mechanical savant. She could fly, drive, or fix nearly anything. You didn't expect it, looking at her, and it didn't do them much good in Fanny's cellar. But it had come in handy in the past.

After a prolonged discussion that excluded them, Marianne and Elle were invited back into Edward and Margaret's conversation. "Margaret thinks it best, and I agree with her, that I'm not along when you move to the new safe house."

"The chances of being recognized are pretty much double if he's with us," Margaret added, without a hint of surliness. Edward Ferris was apparently a great miracle worker.

"When?" Elle asked.

"Tonight," he said.

* * *

They'd hastily arranged a senate, he and Lucy Steele, who he'd had to reluctantly accept as an equal partner in this venture—setting up a new government on Crash. It frustrated him that he was suddenly yoked with Lucy, after all of his years leading the revolution. He didn't trust her. But she'd come out of the woodwork at precisely the right time and fired precisely the right bullet. The public loved her, and he couldn't get rid of her easily.

Their first meeting was that night. It should have been his crowning moment, but it wasn't. He felt distracted. He kept thinking about the Dashwood daughters, who were probably right at that moment making their fraught journey across town to his safe house. He had given them a key and as clear directions as he could, a map drawn on the back of a napkin from Fanny's kitchen.

It turned out to be a blessing, having Lucy Steele in the room with him. He looked at her and the thought came into his head, _I can't let her take this over from me_. And so he pulled himself together, put the Dashwoods out of his mind, and bore himself considerably better through the second half of the senate. Afterwards, he left quickly.

When he reached the house, it was dark, and he felt an ominous sense of foreboding that they had not made it. But he realized if they had, they surely would've been smart enough to keep the lights off until he got there. Of course, there was only one way to find out.

He turned the lock and opened the door, immediately shutting it behind him and locking it again. Someone other than him turned a table lamp on. It was Elle; they were saf. In the dim light the lamp had made, he saw her tall, lithe frame sitting in one of his chairs. She put one finger to her lips. Marianne and Margaret were both asleep, Marianne on the couch and Margaret on the floor beside it.

They spoke quietly. "What is this place?" She asked. "It's not a safe house. It's just a house, in the middle of the city."

"This is where I live," he admitted.

Her eyes widened. They looked almost black. "This is a terrible idea," she said.

He was delighted now that he knew they'd made it. The weight that had been wearing him down—Lucy Steele and the senate and all of the problems of Crash that he would be expected to, but possibly could not, fix—was lifted. And he grinned. "It's a fantastic idea. And you haven't seen the best part. Come on."

He took her hand—it seemed the most natural thing—and led her through the kitchen. He showed her how the pantry shelves could be pulled forward and that they concealed a door. She followed him through it, and down the stairs.

"Another cellar?" she asked, with humor in her black eyes.

He smiled. "Just wanted to make sure you felt at home."

It wasn't a cellar. It was the safe house part of the house. A bedroom, bathroom, and even a satellite screen. "Who else knows about this place?" she asked, after he had shown her the whole space.

He shrugged. "A few people. We used it to hide political prisoners, or make satellite calls back when we thought we might be able to get some off planet support for the revolution. Haven't really used it in years, though. Most of those who knew about it wouldn't think twice about it now."

She sighed and pushed her short hair back from her face with one hand, and it seemed suddenly odd to him that Marianne was always described as the pretty one. Whoever said that, they hadn't been this close to Elle.

"I don't know. It seems risky. For you, I mean." Elle paused and turned, facing him directly. "I understand what you're trying to do here on Crash, that you're trying to make a better world. And I just think… well, if anyone catches you aiding and abetting the Dashwood fugitives, that's going to undermine everything you've ever worked for."

"But what makes it perfect: no one will ever look for you here," he insisted.

"Alright," she agreed resignedly. "I'll accept it as a temporary solution. Come on, we'd better wake the troops and introduce them to their new living quarters."

As they made their way back up the stairs, she added, "You know, it's impossible to disagree with you for long. You're so damn earnest."

He laughed. "That is what I'm famous for. Earnestness and naiveté"

And maybe it was naïve, but he felt like everything was going to be okay. Better than okay. It would all work out marvelously in the end. He would save the Dashwood daughters. He would change the planet's mind about them. It was, after all, a new era for Crash. These were the days when anything was possible.

* * *

**A/N: REVIEW!**


	3. The Other Ferris

_A/N: First of all business: I realized I somehow got my names bungled in previous chapters. For some reason I've been calling the Dashwood's half-brother "Robert" when his name is actually "John." The only reason this matters is Edward's brother is the one actually named "Robert" and I didn't want to confuse anyone. I've changed all previous chapters so that they now say "John" when they should._

_Second of all, shout out to Jill, who has already made this story way better than it would be without her. I basically co-opted the whole first scene of this chapter from her genius brain. And also happy birthday too her. (Feel honored because I may have never finished this chapter if not for your birthday. I probably would've just kept emailing you about Doctor Who.)_

_Third of all, if you're reading this…Review! I'm starting to feel like nobody is. And thank you to those that have! You all are lovely and much appreciated!_

* * *

_3. The Other Ferris_

Afterwards, "You've got to get your brother under control," was the first thing that Lucy Steele said.

It put Robert Ferris immediately in a bad mood. Of course Lucy Steele wasn't one for pillow talk—neither was he for that matter—and the sexual part of their relationship was merely that. Sexual, not emotional. Still, the last thing he wanted to hear about in bed was his fucking little brother Edward.

He sat up, lit a cigarette like he was some kind of post-coital cliché. "I don't know what it is you think I can do. I think you know more than anyone, me and my brother do not exactly see eye to eye."

"Do you think it's true, though? About the girl?" she asked.

Robert shrugged. "Probably."

It had been so strange. Everyone expected great things of Edward after the fighting was over. After all, Edward had been a soldier by necessity, but it was reconstruction that was truly in his soft little heart. He had always been the visionary.

But then, as soon as the trigger had been pulled, the bullet had hit its mark, Dashwood was gone and the coup was over, something had happened to Edward. He had lost his razor-sharp focus. He was often off God-knew-where, and even when he wasn't, he was distracted, looking over your shoulder instead of into your eyes. Suddenly it became all too clear how much everything depended on him, because without Edward leading as he always had they were floundering, stalemated. They were on the brink of chaos.

The mystery had been what was distracting Edward. But then the rumor had started to circulate—that it was a girl. Not just a girl—a very, very underage girl.

Robert had never questioned that the rumor was true. It was exactly the kind of bleeding-heart idiocy Edward would fall into, right when the world was at his fingertips. He probably thought he was _in love_.

"Well, you have to do something," Lucy said, ignoring Robert's obvious irritation.

"Why?" he asked sullenly, although he knew why. Robert wanted Edward out of the way, but it was impossible to get him out of the way yet. Everything depended on Edward. Edward was the person that Crash believed in. And it was damned inconvenient, Edward and his famous idealism, because Robert could not have cared less about creating a better world. He just wanted to run things. He wanted the power they had stripped from Dashwood.

It was Robert who had negotiated with Lucy Steele, a mercenary for hire if the price and opportunity were right, and gotten her to Crash. So it was, in effect, thanks to him that the bloody revolution had been brought to a close. He had hired the girl who pulled the trigger. Yet he remained frustratingly outside of the spotlight.

Lucy had not answered his question, had instead gotten out of the bed and started putting her clothes back on.

"Why don't we just have him killed?" Robert asked, hearing for himself the futility of the question even as he asked it.

Lucy was pulling on her boots. "I suppose we can, once I've amassed enough popular support of my own. But we don't have that kind of support yet. You know it."

The thing was, he couldn't trust her. She wanted the same things as him—power, opportunity—and certainly she felt as little loyalty towards him as he did towards her. She would do what she had to get what she wanted. Robert had the suspicion that she would hitch herself to Edward's star if she could, that she was only stringing him along until she had the other Ferris secured.

"I'll talk to him. I can't promise you anything else," he said. What else could he do? His choices were limited.

And Lucy Steele was satisfied.

* * *

It was Margaret who wandered up from the cellar while Edward was in his kitchen making a sandwich.

"Go back downstairs," he said, sounding, to his own ears, disturbingly parental. He was getting too used to having Dashwoods in his basement. It had only been three weeks, and it felt like they had always been there. He was getting too invested. If he wasn't careful he would forget they were a secret. A secret that could get him killed.

"Nice try, but not a chance," Margaret said, and he knew he was going to allow this. Partly because he was genuinely fond of Margaret—she was a good, if extremely troubled kid—but partly because Elle had told him he was the first person Margaret had deemed worthy of conversation for years, and he had this strong, very dangerous, delirious need to make Elle like him.

So he let Margaret sit down at the kitchen table, consequences be damned, and gave her half of the sandwich.

"How are you pulling this off, anyway?" she asked, halving her sandwich down the center and picking out the lettuce. "Isn't somebody getting suspicious of you swaning off all the time to be here and acting all secretive?"

"Margaret, I have planned and won many battles. I'm a genius at diversionary tactics."

She raised her eyebrows, unimpressed.

"I started a rumor about myself," he admitted.

She smiled. She was a pretty girl—all of the Dashwoods were pretty girls—but you didn't see it much in Margaret, what with the black hair and the eyeliner and the cloud of bad mood surrounding her. "Nice," she said. "So what is it? Do you have cancer? Or a boyfriend? Are you writing a book?"

He hadn't really talked about this with anyone, and why he was talking about it with Margaret Dashwood was confounding. But she was asking, and he was going to answer. "I'm sleeping with a fifteen-year-old," he said.

She wrinkled her nose and took a bite of the sandwich. "That is the grossest thing. Ever."

He laughed. "Exactly. It explains any kind of secrecy on my part, and the best part is that no one wants to confront me about it. Nobody wants to uncover a scandal that will tarnish my reputation and the revolution along with it."

Margaret nodded, chewing thoughtfully. "Well, if worse comes to worst I'll pretend to be the fifeteen-year-old," she said.

Edward wiped his hand on his pant leg and extended it towards her. "Comrade, I will take that deal," he said, and they shook hands, very formally.

And then she asked, "Do you want to sleep with Marianne?"

"Wha—What?' he stuttered, completely upended by the abrupt question. She was a lovely girl, but of all the Dashwoods, Marianne was the one he had had the least to do with, and she certainly wasn't the one he had spent the most time thinking about.

Margaret continued, matter-of-factly. "Because, just so you know, she has these burn scars on her legs that she's way insecure about so she's, like, totally dysfunctional about sex. She basically only sleeps with someone if they don't know who she is or she's never going to see them again. So actually, if we do end up having to go off planet or something, you might have a pretty good shot."

"No," he said. "No, I don't want to sleep with her."

She shrugged. "Well it was a fair question. You're here all the time. And most guys do."

Suddenly he wanted to confess to her about Elle. He had too many secrets, and he had never been good at them. He knew that he was letting things get the best of him, that his work was suffering, that he had a responsibility to the planet and he couldn't betray it. He knew he would probably never be able to keep them safe of Crash, nor could he go running off with a Dashwood daughter. But he had thought about these things, and he was going to confess them to Margaret Dashwood, of all people. A teenager. Her sister.

A knock on his front door stopped him.

Margaret's eyes widened. "Go," he said in a hushed voice. This time she didn't argue, stood immediately and started back for the basement door. "It's fine," he reassured her. "Just all of you try to act like you're not here."

She disappeared, and he made sure the pantry was shut up properly behind her before he went to his front door to answer it.

Of all people, it was Robert.

Sometimes Edward felt like he'd been switched at birth or something, ended up going home from the hospital with the wrong family. Actually, he always felt like that. He had nothing in common with his siblings.

"Robert," he said, and his tone said _what do you want? _

Robert pushed his way past Edward into the house. He was walking straight back to the kitchen, and Edward had a flash of panic. Did Robert know? Had he closed the pantry? But of course, he had, and of course Robert didn't know. In the kitchen, he was pouring himself a drink.

"You want one?" he asked Edward.

"Not yet," Edward said wryly.

Robert impressively downed his drink, setting his glass on the counter with a loud clink. Then he turned around, leaning against the counter. Edward crossed his arms and waited.

"Look, nobody wants to talk to you about it," Robert said, "but somebody's got to ask, so I'm going to ask. Are you banging the jailbait or not?"

"Excuse me?" Edward asked, and was pleased with himself for mustering a tone that sounded both indignant and defensive.

"Okay, I don't care. I really don't. And you know if I could I would be happy to let you hang yourself with whatever bullshit you've got yourself into. But you're going to take us all down with you this time."

"Us?" Edward asked, because he had the curious feeling that Robert wasn't just speaking for himself, that these words were someone else's.

Robert ignored the question. "Put your house in order, Edward. You've got things to do. The planet needs leadership. There's still a war on, and we should've found the Dashwood girls by now. Somebody's hiding them. You don't even seem to care about it."

Mention of the Dashwoods but Edward on the defensive for real. The rumor he started was working right now, distracting everyone from the fact that it was he who was hiding the Dashwoods. But how long would it be before someone put two and two together? The longer he dragged his feet about finding them, the more dangerous it was. Some would figure it out. Probably Lucy Steele.

And that was it. It was Lucy Steele who had sent Robert to talk to him. It had to be. They were ganging up on him, the last two people on Crash he trusted. And sure, they needed him now. But what would happen when they didn't anymore?

"I don't think I need instruction on how I should be running things from you and Lucy Steele," Edward said hotly. His emotions were genuine now.

Robert rolled his eyes like a teenager. "Apparently you do," he said.

Part of Edward wanted to keep arguing the point. But Robert had pushed himself forward from the counter and seemed to be heading in the direction of leaving. Edward wasn't going to stop him.

"No need to get your panties in a bunch," Robert stopped at the door to say. "Everyone's just looking out for you." Which was such a bad lie, it was almost funny. Edward shut the door without replying.

* * *

"Who do you think it was?" Marianne asked.

"Go to sleep, Mar," Elle sighed. It was late now, but only Margaret was sleeping. Of course she and Marianne were awake, wondering. Earlier, Margaret had come downstairs in a hurry saying that someone was at the door. It was the first time that had happened since they'd been hidden in their new basement. They still didn't know who had come, because Edward had never come downstairs.

And Elle waited. She waited until she heard her sister's breathing grow heavy. Then she slipped out of bed, and out of the room, and up the stairs. He was not in the living room or kitchen, so Elle climbed another set of stairs, into a part of the house she had never visited before. Yet she did not hesitate. And there he was, in his bedroom. His door was open. He was sitting at a cluttered desk, one dim lamp shining over the piles of books and papers. In front of him was a book that looked like a journal. He was staring at in intensely.

But he heard her movement and his gaze shifted. He didn't look surprised, and she came into the room without permission. There was nowhere to sit but his bed, so she sat on it.

"Who was it?" she asked.

Edward shifted his chair so that he was facing her, their knees almost touching. "My brother," he said. "I wouldn't worry. He's hardly an expert sleuth."

"I hear you've been very clever," Elle said, and she couldn't suppress a slight smile. Margaret had told her about the rumor he'd spread about himself amongst his fellows.

He grinned. "I'm always clever."

"I thought you were always earnest and naive."

"I'm a man of many qualities."

"Still," she said, interrupting the flow of their banter, "how long is it going to last? Not forever."

He sighed, frustrated, a small crease appearing between his eyebrows. "I just need time," he said. "I've been trying to think of somewhere we can move you where you'll be safe, just until all the anti-Dashwood sentiment dies down. There has to be somewhere."

But Elle shook her head. It was wishful thinking. They would never be safe on Crash. "You know that's impossible," she said.

He shook his head, the crease deepening. "It can't be."

"Why not?"

"Because—" He looked at her helplessly, without an answer. But she knew how the sentence ended. It couldn't be impossible because he didn't want it to be impossible. She felt the same way, had indulged in her own fantasies. But she always came back to the same hard reality: it was impossible. And they both knew it, deep down.

It seemed it was up to her to be the realist. "Edward, I told you this was temporary. I still think we need to get off planet. I just haven't figured out how."

Edward's eyes were shadowed. She couldn't see their expression, but she heard it in his voice. He said: "I don't want you to go."

And Elle, she slipped to the edge of the bed, and leaned forward, and kissed him. It was by far the most thoughtless thing she'd ever done in her life, but she didn't regret it.

"You're making this very hard on me," he said gruffly, when she leaned back.

She wrinkled her nose. "Unfortunately, I don't think there's going to be an _easy _at this point, for either of us."

His was tapping the journal on his desk with the fingers of left hand, a wrestles movement. "If I give you this," he said, picking up the journal, "I am basically committing treason against…well, against myself, really."

"What is it?" she asked.

He handed it to her, and when she opened it, she saw what he meant. It was all of her father's off-planet contacts, where they were, how to contact them. "There has to be someone in there. That's how you get off-planet," he said.

"Thank you," she said. She wanted to kiss him again, to thank him and, well, because she just wanted to kiss him again. But once had probably been more than enough. She stood to go, but as she passed him he caught her arm.

"Stay," he said, and his eyes were no longer shadowed. She could see in them many things, not the least of which was hope. How could one boy from Crash be filled with that much hope?

It was contagious.

So Elle Dashwood did the second most thoughtless thing she had ever done in her life, and stayed.


	4. A Flight to Malderin

_4. A Flight to Malderin_

The notebook of off-planet contacts was difficult to decipher, even for Margaret who was generally ace at cracking code. It took three days, between the three of them, to get a decent list of names, planets, and contact numbers. Once they had the list, it took another two days of combing through before they came across someone who might be able, and willing, to help them.

Jim Middleton. It was Marianne who knew him, and she was surprised to find his name in the book. Four years ago, he had kidnapped her and held her for ransom in the most obvious of hiding places: a mechanic shop not one block away from the Czar's palace. At first she had assumed he was Underground, but she soon learned (because he told her) that he was drug-runner by trade, and getting too old for the business. He was friendliest of kidnappers, and they became really quite fond of each other over the five days he held her. When Czar Dashwood at last paid the ransom, Jim had released Marianne without fuss or haggling, and had apparently used the money to set himself up on a planet less war-torn and more suited to retirement.

According to the notebook, the planet where Jim Middleton had decided to live out his golden years was Brandon Global.

Brandon Global wasn't a bad place to live. It was one of those peaceful, God-fearing planets of the Middle North solar system. If it had ever had a name other than Brandon Global, nobody knew it now. It had long since taken the name of the zillion-dollar corporation that spanned much of its surface. Christopher Brandon, famous entrepreneur who owned and ran Brandon Global Corp ("Probably owns the planet, too," said Marianne with cynicism; she bore no love for men who owned planets), had cornered the market on manufacturing spaceship hyper drives.

The notebooks listed a satellite number for Jim, and the sisters decided that this would be their best shot. Still, Elle hesitated to contact him. It seemed too final.

Meanwhile, Edward had been drawn back into his real life. Guerilla warfare in the south between Underground and Loyalists had reached a fever pitch, and he had put himself back to work to deal with this and the other endless problems facing him. They were left at the house alone most of the time now.

Elle still saw him, but she saw him at night.

She had a feeling Marianne new about this, but she kept the pretense of sneaking out of the room, once she thought her sisters were asleep. She knew she was acting recklessly—he must have known it too—and something so doomed and sad hung perpetually over their heads until it was difficult to draw the line between love and masochism. Did she love him? He was a very good man, a Great man.

She believed in him, but she worried about him. He didn't always see things clearly. He was too optimistic. She was afraid that the world would break him.

Marianne had always accused her of being too calculating, intellectualizing everything, which wasn't true. But Elle was a realist. It struck her as a bitter irony that if anyone could've helped Edward build a new Crash, it was her. Her pragmatism was the perfect balance to his sometimes blind enthusiasm. In another universe, she could have done so much for him. But in this universe, the real universe, the best she could do for him was to get off Crash.

Two nights after the discovery of Jim Middleton, she finally broached the subject.

"I think we've found somewhere to go," she said.

Edward was silent in bed beside her. The room was dark, and she could not see his face; but, a hand on his chest, she could feel his breathing, steady and slow.

"Do you want to know where?" she asked.

He still did not answer, and she felt a heavy sadness in the silence that fell between them. "I think it's best if you don't tell me," he said at last.

She leaned up and kissed him. "Are you afraid of being compromised?" she joked. She wanted to tell him, to share this last secret with him since they would never share anything else. But she had known he would say this. She had known.

"No," he said, "But it's still better if I can't be compromised. For both of us. If I just don't know."

She sighed and rolled onto her back, the two of them not touching now, a space between. She knew he was right. Sometimes it was he who saw things clearly.

"When do you want to go?" he asked. He had stopped trying to convince her to stay. If he had asked one more time, she would've said _no_ anyway, gave him the same list of reasons as before. And yet she had wanted him to ask, one more time.

"The end of the week," she heard herself say, and it was decided. Three more days, and she would never see him again.

They had already discussed how it would happen. He would get them onto a flight to Malderin, and from there they would arrange a flight to their final destination. Malderin was one planet-wide city, and the transportation hub of the galaxy. If you wanted to smuggle anything, you smuggled it through Malderin. It was virtually impossible to trace what went in and out of the planet, and where it went to.

"Alright," he said. "I will find you a ship."

* * *

When Marianne made the call to Brandon Global from the satellite screen in Edward's safe house, it was decidedly not Jim Middleton who answered. Instead, Marianne was faced with a plump, middle-aged woman in a dressing gown, her bleached-blonde hair in curlers.

"Well, dear, who are you?" the woman asked, and it was refreshing not to be recognized. To think, there were entire worlds out there where nobody knew who Marianne Dashwood was. The prospect was exhilarating.

"I'm—" Marianne began, but then it didn't seem the best idea to say who she was until she knew who she was talking to. "I'm trying to get in touch with Jim Middleton. Are you his wife?"

"Oh goodness, no. I'm just Jenny. I do the cooking and cleaning. _JIM!_"

The last world was shouted over her shoulder, and Marianne reckoned all of Brandon Global must have heard it. Jenny had alarming lung capacity. She turned back to the screen and the curiosity in her eyes was evident.

She said, "I dare say, I have to wonder what a pretty young girl like you is calling Jim for. Are you his daughter?"

It was one of the moments where Marianne just did the thing that came into her head without really thinking it through. "Yes," she said.

Jenny's round face broke into a twinkling grin. "The old dog," she said delightedly. "I knew he must have a few progeny out there."

At this point, Jim himself appeared in the screen and he looked just like she remembered him except that he his hair, which had been graying, was now completely silver. "Look who it is!" he said, surprised but apparently happy to see her. "My good friend Marianne."

"You mean your _daughter _Marianne," she said.

He frowned in confusion. "What?"

"I'm your daughter."

"Jenny, go for a walk!" he bellowed. Jenny looked miffed, but since her position in his household was a paid one, she evidently felt some responsibility to obey his command. Marianne soon heard the faint bang of a door on Jim's side of the satellite call.

Then he said, "What do you want from me, girl?" His tone was now guarded.

"Don't you know what's going on here at all?" she asked. "My father's dead. We're in trouble."

"I guess you would be," Jim said, and she couldn't read him. She had been so sure he would help them. Her gut had told her so. Could she have been wrong? She had always felt like they were friends, kidnapping and all.

"We need to get off planet."

"And that's where I come in," he said.

She nodded. "We can get ourselves are far as Malderin. A flight from there to Brandon Global, and somewhere to live for a few months, until we get our feet under us."

She waited, and at last his face broke into a grin. "As if I would do less for my one and only daughter."

Marianne broke into smile of her own. Of course her gut had been right. It was always right.

* * *

Margaret came up the stairs again the day before they left. Edward had just gotten home. He heard the pantry door creak open and he thought, _Elle_. But it wasn't Elle. It was this poor, lost girl. He liked to think that he had given her a chance, that maybe on Brandon Global Margaret Dashwood would be able to be Margaret Dashwood—a normal teenager, not a girl in disguise.

But part of him thought that even if they made it off-planet, the Dashwoods would never be completely free of Crash. You couldn't grow up on a planet like this without it becoming part of you, seeping into your pores for better or worse. Usually for worse. He knew because he was the same: Crash would always be a part of him.

"Comrade," he said, and saluted her.

She offered him the slightest of smiles and slouched into a chair at his kitchen tables. He followed her lead and sat down beside her.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked.

"Nope," he said.

She nodded, arms crossed, looking not at him, not at anything in particular. "That's what Elle said."

For a moment they were both silent. Then Margaret continued, "I know I should be, like, thrilled about it. I've always hated this fucking planet. But I've also always lived here."

On impulse, he grabbed a paper and pen from the pile of things on his table, wrote down a series of numbers, and slid in front of her. "This is the number to the satellite screen downstairs, and it is very privileged information. Three weeks from today, at midnight Crash time. Call me and let me know you're safe. You should be wherever you're going by then."

Margaret's eyes widened as she took the slip of paper.

"Don't tell Elle," he added. And then, on second thought, he made another amendment: "The first day of every month, one a.m., I'll be at that screen. If any of you are in trouble—if you ever need anything—" he trailed off.

Margaret nodded. She understood. She slipped the paper into the pocket of her hoodie, and then she sighed. "We won't be Dashwoods there. We're going by some other name."

"That means you're free," he said. "You can just be Margaret. You can be whoever it is you want to be."

"I guess you're right," she said. "I never thought about it that way."

So went the first of Edward's goodbyes.

* * *

"I've been thinking, we need to start checking all the spacecraft that are heading to Malderin," Lucy Steele said to Edward the next morning at the palace, still serving as the makeshift headquarters of the fledgling government.

"What for?" he asked with apparent disinterest, not even looking up from the correspondence he was reviewing. She was watching him closely for any tell-tale signs of nervousness, but there were none. Fanny was either wrong about him, or he was a very cool customer.

Lucy had gone to see Edward's sister the day before—a social call on the surface, but with the obvious ulterior motives. She was not above ingratiating herself with Edward's sister, if it might put her in a better position with Edward, who still didn't trust her. Of course, he had good reason not to trust her. But that wasn't the point.

She had also wanted to see what information she could get out of the sister, about either of her brothers, anything that might be useful. And what she managed to pull from Fanny was so beyond anything she had expected: Fanny seemed to think that Edward knew where the Dashwoods were. She wouldn't say anything other than that. But she was very adamant about it.

"That's obviously how the Dashwoods are going to get off-planet," she answered him, still observing his body language, looking for muscle tension. "Everyone smuggles through Malderin."

He forcibly tossed the letter he was reading onto his desk, a movement of frustration. "Lucy, why does it matter?" he asked. "It's been almost a month, and clearly they're not trying to stir up a counterrevolution. If all they want to do is disappear, I say let them."

He picked his letter back up, and his eye scanned it again. He did know where they were. He knew. She could tell. Edward bloody Ferris was hiding the Dashwood sisters.

"They're a symbol," she said.

"It's a waste of resources," he said. "But do as you must."

Was he calling her bluff? Or was she calling his? The thing was, she would so prefer it if she could use Edward to get control of Crash. It was the easy way. But maybe Robert was right and they would just have to kill him. It was hopeless if she could not get him to trust her. Perhaps it was in her best interest to let the Dashwoods go. Then she and Edward would have no reason to mistrust one another. She would kill him if she had to, but it seemed easier to marry him.

She wouldn't check the ships. But she wouldn't tell him either. She would let him sweat it. She left the room without another word.

* * *

Edward waiting a full minute to feel certain that Lucy was out of hearing range, and then he made the call. Thank God he had given Elle the tracker phone. Thank God she answered, her voice nervous as she said, "Hello?"

"Get off the plane."

"Edward. What?"

"Get off the plane," he repeated. "Lucy might have someone checking it. Just get off. I'm coming." He was already standing up, grabbing his keys, pulling on his coat.

"Where are we supposed to go?" Elle asked.

"Hide. Somewhere. Stay nearby, I'll be there soon."

He hung up and headed out the door.

* * *

_Stay nearby_, Edward had said, so they went around the corner to a small café, ordered coffees, and sat in it like normal people. They were all nervous. Elle felt especially on edge, glances out the widow constantly, wondering when Lucy Steele's G-men would show up to execute them right there on the street.

When someone finally came, it was Edward. "It's clear," he said. "God, I think I almost had a heart attack. I'm too young for this."

She wanted to point out that he had lived through closer scrapes than this. He had a scar on his chest from a bullet that had just missed his vitals. He had once been caught and almost tortured to death before the Underground had rescued him. He had told her these and other stories in bed, and it was cruel that she had to see him again, to remember how he had shared his secrets, when they had already said goodbye.

It was Marianne who spoke.

"Come with us," she said. The words froze everyone, but Marianne continued. "Edward, you cannot save Crash. You can't. It's a lost cause. In a month, you'll be assassinated and a person just like our father will take over from where he left off. Or it will be you. You'll become the person just like our father. You love Elle. You need to come with us now, and save this." She reached forward, and put a hand on his chest, over his heart. The she dropped the hand and waited calmly, as if she knew that Edward would say yes.

Edward couldn't not seem to find his voice. He looked from Marianne to Elle. And Elle knew, so she spoke for him.

"He can't come," she said.

Marianne turned to face her sister. "He has to chose—" she began, but Elle cut her off.

"Marianne, he can't come."

Sometimes, even Marianne knew when to let something go, and this is one of those time. "Come on Marg, we have a ship to catch," she said, grabbing her younger sister and practically dragging her out of the café. Elle watched their forms retreat, until they were around the corner and she could not see them anymore from the café window. Anything to keep from looking at Edward.

"I do love you," he said, helplessly, almost desperately. Her eyes snapped back to him.

She stepped towards him, reached forward to place her hand against his cheek. "But you love your planet more," she said.

Then she kissed him for the last time, and walked away.

* * *

_A/N: Sorry for all the angst in this chapter, but fun times with Brandon are on the horizon! I promise next chapter will be much less angst heavy, and involve at least one Meet Cute._

_Thanks to everyone who reviewed! PLEASE keep reviewing. I beg you. I need affirmation. It's my love language._

_Jill: You know by giving me all these ideas, you are actually just allowing me to be lazier, but amongst the shout outs to your brilliance in this chapter: (1) Margaret being a code-cracker (because she's the strategist) (2) Fanny telling Lucy about the Dashwoods (3) Marianne's prescience about assassination attempts. Speaking of Marianne, I'm glad she finally got to contribute this chapter, something meaningful and Marianne-ish. Anyway…Happy birthday! Since every day is your birthday now._


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